Who is the most progressive speaker scheduled to appear at UCB in the next couple of months? The administration should cancel that speaker, and announce that for every speaker who gets cancelled because of violent or over-enthusiatic protests, a speaker at the opposite end of the spectrum will get cancelled.
Berkeley did not protect the speaker and those who wanted to hear the speech. I was there when Salmon Rushdie got a police escort into a speaking hall at UCLA. Was Yiannopoulous given the same?
Yeah, I will stand in that line. While I understand hyperbole, the social situation in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in no way shape or form compares to the social situation in the United States, even with those dastardly Republicans in charge. More importantly, the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks were led by serious people who had a coherent agenda that appealed to a large segment of the peasants and merchant classes in Russia. Nothing about the current crop of protestors is remotely serious. Nor have the present tactics of the left and their issues de jure been shown to be appealing to anyone but an ever shrinking fringe of the left side of the political spectrum.
Some of you need to realize that there is a reason why the democratic party is as decimated as it is. Normal people don’t look at what happened at Berkley and immediately say “Oh wow, look what Trump caused”.
Overly political. No support for this idea.
@nwymom Good point about the bathroom requirement and ending federal funding.
Will corporations boycott Berkeley because the students there don’t believe in something as fundamental as free speech?
“The rioters in this case are setting their own causes back - which, ironically, is the reverse of what they want.”
I think they get exactly what they want. Publicity from a largely sympathetic media. The focus of this will never be on the rioters and the carnage they caused or the fact they prevented a speech from an opposition speaker. That will be soon forgotten and in the end blamed on our institutional racism. They’ll analyze “why it happened” and Milo and what is so controversial about him and segue into the Executive order.
I think many of the students protest because they do care about the issue but choose to only inform themselves of one side of the issue. They are likely not the rioters (an opinion).
@Dustyfeathers, Well, yeah it is a little political. Although supporting the point would be certainly too political, so I just referenced what I assumed was the obvious point based on inarguable facts (namely the number of elective offices held by D’s at all levels as a percentage of all such offices). After decades inand around politics, I think people misunderstand that problem, and fail to appreciate how it hamstrings a party at a national level.
FWIW, I am responding to the assertion that today’s progressive protestors are akin to the Russian revolutionaries and that the government as of a week ago is Tsarist Russia. That is an obviously political point as well, and one for which I see no support, for the stated reasons.
@circuitrider with such a large police presence why no arrests? If the people actually breaking windows, setting fires throwing fireworks were arrested for their actions we’d know know if they were students or not. If there are not consequences for these illegal activities it will encourage this sort of behavior in the future. Who is going to pay for the damage these people caused?
I think that Michigan is less of a gerrymandered state but several of the other key states are heavily gerrymandered, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. The state houses then voted in laws known to be repressive to the opposition. It is a fact that these are so well recognized that cases to challenge this are headed to the Supreme Court. NC heavily favored legislature also decimated the powers of the incoming opposition governor.
These are not even playing fields.
It’s not necessarily the case that the elections accurately reflect the sentiments of the body politic.
Does anyone know who invited him to speak? Is this part of a college tour? Are there texts of the speech?
UCB is a “sanctuary campus”. Nobody will be arrested. Protesters/rioters are a marginalized people who need protection, not prosecution.
@Building I hear the campus Republicans invited him.
When and where to make arrests is a tactical question best left to the police. Wishing that there were more confrontations and more violence, IMO, just plays into the rioters pseudo-Bolshevik playbook.
Well, if you want to see how this type of situation can be handled well by a university you can watch the beginning (or in full) the video of Milo’s speech on the topic of the Supreme Court at Vanderbilt last fall.
My eldest son graduated from Cal and I must say that I am not surprised by recent events there.
I am very glad my daughter is at Vandy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5y1KwWzxdg
Who are you talking about??? I don’t see anyone wishing for more confrontations or more violence!
Are you saying we shouldn’t question the actions of the police in this matter? It’s their job to arrest people engaging in criminal behavior so they can be held accountable for their actions. They did not do their job and I’d like to know why.
@Dustyfeathers, not to get too political, but I think you are misunderstanding my point. One of the consequences of gerrymandering, on both the right and left, is to push elected representatives to the fringes. When this happens, those candidates are then less attractive at the next “level” when they have to run in a district or state that is not deep blue or rose red. This also has the consequence of limiting the available voices within a party who have the ability and the wisdom to stand up and say, stop what you are doing, this is killing us in places like Ohio, Pa, West Virginia, etc. It is just the nature of politics in our system, and it happens occasionally on both sides.
Bingo. If Berkeley or any of the schools that Milo Yiannopoulos recently toured wanted to stop the violence, they would just arrest protesters who violated the law. These types of protests would stop immediately.
Yes, and when they got into power they commenced to kill off large segments of the peasant and merchant classes that initially supported them.
I am interested in how a couple of posters are using the phrase “normal people”
I can see you’ve never been in the middle of a riot or in a highly volatile street situation. The police don’t just walk up to a person and ask them politely to get into a patrol wagon. They have a right to make judgment calls in order to 1) protect themselves and, 2) protect innocent bystanders. Am I the only one grateful that the only optics here were a broken door and some graffiti?
@alh, speaking for myself, “normal people” are those who are 1) not single issue voters (whether that issue is gun rights or gender issues, etc) &/or 2)are not interested in the minutes of politics and policy generally.
@Astro77 regarding the validity of CNN vs other news source. I encourage you to look at this site…https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
Please notice, CNN is has a definite bias. https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/
As does CBS https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbs-news/